adventures in the kin trade

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airstrikes

I think the Immortal Regiment marches every year after the Parade remembering Victory in The Great Patriotic War. This morning I saw it for the first time and found it very affecting. I wonder how many of the 20 million plus dead of the war were represented in the photographs carried by their descendants.

It is right and proper that prominent Jews were honored guests at the Parade and March. While his airforce is wreaking havoc in Syria, Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to enjoy the occasion under a bright Moscow sky. Were his feelings mixed as he watched the display of Russian might pass through and above Red Square? Perhaps he has been tipped the wink. Russia will sacrifice Syria and Iran rather than attack Israel. In a world of hypocrites and liars, it is impossible to predict what the next few weeks and months will bring. Jake Morphonios atBlackstone Intelligencetries to make some sense of last night’s attacks on Damascus. The BBC’s Radio Five Live News didn’t mention them, even though RAF Tornados from Akrotiri may have played a supporting role.

It wasn’t bliss to be alive in this dawn – to hear that the United States, United Kingdom, and France had bombed Syria. But to be old is very heaven. I think I have had enough of this rotten world.

I think I was in my early teens when my father told me that he wanted me to always “be honest” and “tell the truth”. He impressed upon me that there would be occasions when liars would get the better of me. They would profit and I would be a loser. He got that right.

So, it was distressing to hear that Syria, a country that has been mortared and bombed enough already, was being illegally attacked again on the weakness of lies. The timing of the Assad government’s alleged chemical attack in Douma made no sense whatsoever. The departing Jaish al-Islam were the only ones with a motive and, with the help of the duplicitous White Helmets, a video of the “fabrication” was quickly put on social media, prompting the New Axis of Evil to act as the terrorists’ air force.

The French President told the world he had “proof” that President Assad was responsible for the Douma atrocity. Weasel words if you don’t then offer the proof. The Russians also had proof, that the terrorists did it, and made it available to the world. They also invited the OPCW to Douma to undertake its own forensic investigation of the site where the chemicals were released, to interview local people and take hair samples.

Compare this openness to the refusal of the United Kingdom to give samples of the Novichok that Russian agents are accused of delivering to the Skripals.

The OPCW has reported on their tests of the Salisbury Novichok and the British media has been full of the organization’s report confirming the findings of the UK scientists. It was a confirmation of sorts. Unfortunately for May and Johnson, the report as delivered seems to have been incomplete. The OPCW sent samples to four independent laboratories for testing and one, in Switzerland, found another chemical, as well as the Novichok. A poison called BZ that was developed by the United States in the 1950s and has never been produced in the Soviet Union or Russia.

There is little point making much of this. (You are not likely to hear about it on the BBC.) The War Criminals have already made up their minds, to prolong the misery of the Syrian people until they get what they want – “regime change”.

But what is really interesting about BZ is that it isn’t intended to kill, just to incapacitate any victim who breathes in a spray of the poison. The mystery of how the Skripals survived a military grade nerve agent is, perhaps, answered. Father and daughter had enjoyed five hours together in Salisbury and then, in the space of 75 yards, they went from walking normally through a mall to being slumped on a bench. So, who sprayed them? We have all seen the CCTV pictures of the Skripals in the Mall. If there are any images of the attacker we will probably never see them. Will we ever see the Skripals again, alive and well?

If the “story” about BZ is true, the OPCW has a lot to answer for, and perhaps its integrity for any findings it makes in Douma will be called into question. But that organization’s discomfiture will be nothing compared to that of the British Government. Even if it proves to be fake news, I think one can conclude that if you see the mouths of Trump, May, and Johnson moving on TV – they’re lying.

With all life on this planet at stake, honesty really should the best policy.

You will have noticed I have been somewhat distracted the last few days. I may get back to researching events in Filey history in a week or two. I am continuing to do the drudge work of preparing gravestone photos for uploading to FamilySearch Tree and adding information to some Filey family genealogies. I’ll continue to post a photo a day. I am so angry and ashamed of my country’s government, though – and infuriated by its propaganda arm, the BBC – that I spend most of the days now looking into their disinformation.

(Six hours after the BZ news broke on RT – where else? – the BBC is still keeping shtum. This is no surprise because it doesn’t fit the UK narrative. Lavrov’s probity is clearly on the line.)